


I'll Save You (time and time again)

by Daughter_of_the_TARDIS



Series: The Space Wives Collection [16]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: BAMF River Song, Children of Time (Doctor Who), F/F, Solitary Confinement, Space Wives, Stormcage Containment Facility, jailbreak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:02:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23566522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daughter_of_the_TARDIS/pseuds/Daughter_of_the_TARDIS
Summary: River Song always had been - and always would be - a force of nature.  She was wild, untameable, a goddess in her own right.  She was the queen of cosmos, and empress on more than a few planets.  But there was something about her when she was younger - before she became a Professor, before their centuries together - that was different.  She was rougher around the edges, more… Mels.  Wilder, and more likely to use her gun to get what she wanted.  There was nothing wrong with it, of course - she loved her wife no matter what - it was just a change from what she was used to.
Relationships: The Doctor/River Song, Thirteenth Doctor/River Song
Series: The Space Wives Collection [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080728
Comments: 12
Kudos: 217





	I'll Save You (time and time again)

There was a new prisoner in the Stormcage.

Normally that wouldn’t bother her at all - they got transfers in all of the time, it seemed. Beings who started fights in their old prisons, who were the opposite of ‘time off for good behavior’. Who were deemed to be too much of a flight risk to be incarcerated anywhere else in the known universe. There were very few that started their sentences off in this place, like she had. But this one was different. She had been hearing about them for the past few days - ever since they had first arrived, it seemed. They weren’t anywhere near her, of course. As one of the most ‘volatile’ prisoners, she had an entire cell block to herself. She had worked hard to get that - picking fights with the right people when she had first arrived. It made things easier - she liked her privacy, and whenever she felt like leaving she didn’t have to worry about a busybody in the next cell over alerting the guards before she made it out. That meant that most of her information came from the guards that watched her, but being their only prisoner in the cell block made that easier as well. They were more likely to talk to her that way - anything to alleviate the boredom that came with watching a single cell.

But so far, everything she heard made the new prisoner seem even more intriguing. They were humanoid - and fairly pretty, judging from the guards’ talk. She would have to decide that for herself. But there was a set of rules with the prisoner, like nothing the archaeologist had heard before.

Don’t talk to the prisoner. This rule seemed simple enough. There were some species whose voices were hypnotic, who could lure someone into a trance and convince them to do their bidding without even trying. That was usually negated, though, by either a sound barrier or - on more primitive planets - a sort of muzzle. Neither of which explained the rule to not talk to the prisoner. If they were some sort of hypnotist, the rule would be to not listen to them.

Don’t give her anything, especially nothing electronic. This one could also be easily explained - River herself was more than handy with scraps of machinery. Once, she had managed to fix her faulty Vortex Manipulator with nothing more than gum, a few bobby pins and a thirty-eighth century hair tie. But they took it to a level far stricter than anything she had ever seen before - and she had already served five of her twelve life sentences. Not consecutively, of course, no matter what the warden thought. 

But they didn’t let the newcomer have anything. Even their meals were transmatted in, and every utensil was taken away with the plate after thirty minutes. She had heard one of the higher-ups complaining about it one day, her mind quickly changed when she was reminded of everywhere that the new inmate had escaped from in the past. River had listened in awe - it was quite the list. She was almost impressed.

Above all, the guards said, keep her away from Doctor Song.

That, of course, was what made her the most curious. They tried to keep most of the others away from her on general principle - she didn’t react too well to stupidity, and of course that description summed up most of the other inmates. But it had never been stated outright as any sort of rule. So she waited - not a long time, she was too impatient for that, but long enough that she could gather some information before she struck.

8888

It had been a standard week, judging by the light cycle in this cell. The lights had switched to night mode seven times, and come back on to day mode seven times - one week since she had been transmatted into this cell. So far, she had measured the exact dimensions of her cell - seven times, in seven different measurement systems. She had mapped out the distance to the nearest star system, and then the nearest planetary system, and then the closest space port. 

All of that had been done in her first hour in the cell. 

The next hundred and sixty-seven hours were spent trying to not think about exactly how her life was going. But it was fine. She was okay. She had just watched her planet be destroyed - again. Her best friend-turned-worst enemy had tried to kill her before possibly escaping - again. And she had learned that her entire past was a lie before being shut away in a tiny cell for life imprisonment. But that was okay, she would be fine. She had herself to talk to. Solitary confinement might get to some people, but she wouldn’t let it affect her. 

“I’m already lyin’ to myself.” That sealed it. Her own company was her worst enemy - it was why she didn’t travel alone. “Gotta get out of here.” she decided. “Before I make myself even madder than I am.” she looked around her cell again, trying to figure out some sort of plan to get her out. There was still nothing there. She was almost impressed with how many precautions they had put into place to keep her where she was. They had taken her sonic, and she hadn’t had any access to anything electronic to use to make her way out. The only contact that she had with the outside world was a tray of food that was transmatted in three times a day. It was honestly ridiculous - they even took the spork back every time. 

All she could do was wait for someone to find her, and at least hope that her fam realized that she was missing in the first place. She just hoped that she didn’t die from sheer boredom before then.

8888

Another ten standard hours had passed, and she was almost asleep. She had made herself a little pillow out of her coat, balling it up enough to be comfortable. Now all that she needed to do was enough complex maths to soothe her enough to fall asleep.

“Prisoner 426 has escaped.” the voices blaring through the speakers startled her, enough to make her jump and pull her attention away from calculating how long it would take for the nearest star’s light to reach them, and how many custard creams it would take to cross that distance. She had almost been asleep - something about the combination of biscuits and complex mathematics just let her sleep like a baby. “Repeat, Prisoner 426 has escaped.” 

The Doctor furrowed her brow - something about that was familiar. Something about this whole place was familiar, if she was honest with herself - like a memory that she couldn’t quite place. Of course, she had millenia worth of memories in her head, she couldn’t be expected to remember everything right away. But this one was important, she knew it. She had seen that number before, more than once. Or maybe heard it. “Why does that -” 

“Hello.” the Doctor spun around, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. It echoed around her cell, bouncing off of the walls until she couldn’t tell where it was coming from. “Who are you?”

She knew that voice - she knew it better than she knew her own, in fact. This voice was still relatively new. But she had known that voice - which could turn from soft as velvet to harder that steel in a moment - for millenia. “How did you -”

“Get down here so quickly?” she asked, the innocent tone in her voice clashing with the smirk that the Doctor knew she wore. “A girl’s got to keep some things to herself, I’m afraid. Now then, who are you and what are you in for?”

“Nevermind that.” the Doctor bluffed - she knew that voice, and any information that she gave her could potentially destroy the timelines. “Who are you?”

“Didn’t you know?” the voice asked, and the intruder stepped out of the shadows, revealing a head of wild blonde curls and a pair of dangerous green eyes. “Doctor River Song - I’m the woman who killed the Doctor.”

8888

River Song always had been - and always would be - a force of nature. She was wild, untameable, a goddess in her own right. She was the queen of cosmos, and empress on more than a few planets. But there was something about her when she was younger - before she became a Professor, before their centuries together - that was different. She was rougher around the edges, more… Mels. Wilder, and more likely to use her gun to get what she wanted. There was nothing wrong with it, of course - she loved her wife no matter what - it was just a change from what she was used to. 

So when faced with a version of her wife that she hadn’t come across in millenia, it took her a minute to remember how to act.

“The Doctor?” she asked, trying to act natural - like a normal criminal would act. Of course, she had no real idea how a criminal would act, but she had seen enough movies that she had a general idea of what she should do. “Doctor who?”

“Never mind that. I’m still waiting to find out what got you locked in here. There aren’t any records at all - not even in the unhackable systems.” River shrugged, sighing theatrically as she made her way around the cell. She wrinkled her nose as she took in just how barren it was - there wasn’t even a cot to sleep on. “Its enough to give a girl a complex.”

The Doctor scrunched up her face. “That they have systems that you can’t hack?”

River snorted, curls bouncing everywhere as she shook her head. “That I hacked into the unhackable systems and still didn’t find anything.” she corrected. “Total waste of time on my part.”

“Got it.” 

River looked her over again, arms crossed over her chest and an eyebrow raised. The Doctor tried her best to keep from squirming under her gaze - it was the same look that an older version of River would give her for years to come. “So who are you?”

“Sarah Jane Smith. I’m in for…” the Doctor panicked, trying to think of a suitable crime that wouldn’t make her wife hate her. “Parking tickets.” she said, cursing herself the moment the words came out of her mouth. There was a certain level of class that she was sure a criminal was supposed to have, and she didn’t quite think she had reached it.

“Hmmm.” River didn’t seem convinced. “Got any plans to get out of here?”

“What? No, no, course not. That… would be wrong.” she said slowly, testing out the words. If she was playing herself, she would have told River the twenty different escape plans that she already had planned. But she wasn’t being herself right now, it was almost like Darillium all over again. “That would be bad. Wouldn’t it?”

“Right…” River drawled, then winced as the alarms went up another twenty decibels in volume. “ugh, would they stop with that infernal alarm? I wish there was a way to turn it off.”

“Yeah, that would be good, wouldn’t it? ‘Course, you’d need to be really clever to figure it out… and have some sort of sonic device to tap into the frequencies and shut them off.” she started to ramble, the techno-babble flowing out of her with the same ease that it always did before she caught herself. “But who would have somethin’ like that?” she finished off, laughing uneasily. 

“Just sonic it already, honestly!”

“What?” she was shocked. River knew - River knew who she was. At first she had been afraid that her telepathic shields had slipped, revealing their bond to her wife. But she checked her shields - still intact.

“You’re still a terrible liar, Doctor.” 

The Doctor looked at her wife, her confusion warring with amazement - no one else had been able to tell that it was her, just because she was a woman now. Still, she should have known that River would have been the exception to the rule. “How did you know it was me?”

“Everyone knows that Sarah Jane Smith doesn’t leave Earth anymore.” River said, rolling her eyes. “Not to mention that outfit you’re wearing. Now where’s the TARDIS?”

River’s explanation made much more sense. “Dunno, actually.” the shorter blonde admitted, shrugging her shoulders. She watched as River pulled a small bag out of her pocket, unrolling it to reveal a sleeve of tools. She bent down in front of one particular wall panel, setting to work. “I was inside when the Judoon transmatted onboard, and then I was here. Not sure where she ended up.”

“Right.” River said, already starting to plan. “That’s the first order of business, then. Can’t even have a quiet night in with you around, can I?” River teased, setting to work.

“What d’you think, by the way?” she asked, slightly nervous. “Of the new me?”

The look that River gave her was enough to make her turn red - it wasn’t the subtly heated look that she had grown used to, the one that promised things for when they were safe and behind closed doors. Instead it was like her wife was undressing her with her eyes, already imagining what might happen.

“I’ve only seen the face - but that can be easily fixed.”

The Doctor laughed as her blush grew stronger, tucking a piece of hair back behind her ear and feeling happier than she had in a long time. Now that she didn’t have to pretend to be a perfect stranger to her wife, things almost seemed like they were going to be okay. She couldn’t even remember the last time that she had actually laughed, and here was River Song - her wife - making everything seem alright again. “You love it.” 

“You know it.”

They heard the sound of carbonized steel boots pounding outside the cell - Stormcage’s security guards hunting for their escaped prisoner. The cell was deadly silent as they waited for them to pass by, panic flashing in both women’s eyes as they stood there. They only relaxed once the sounds had died away completely.

“Got to run.” River said, pressing a kiss to her wife’s cheek. There was a wild glint in her eyes, one that said there was trouble already - or she was about to make some. “But I’ll be back, quick as I can.”

With that, the Doctor was left alone in a dark and musty cell, with nothing but her thoughts for company. She looked around uneasily - while she logically knew that this was the same cell she had been locked in before River appeared, it almost seemed to be colder… emptier. “Hurry back.” she called, but there was no response.

8888

She reappeared with as much fanfare as she had the first time - which is to say, none at all. The Doctor nearly jumped when the other woman appeared in a cloud of static and electricity, Vortex Manipulator in hand.

“Where did you get that?” the Doctor asked, gesturing at the leather strap wrapped around her wife’s wrist.

River raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“If you had it in your cell, you would have been back ages ago.” she pointed out, ignoring the slightly impressed look that her wife gave her to the best of her ability. “So where was it?”

“Warden’s office. Had to steal it back from him.” she grinned, sharp and deadly and warm. “I got this for you as well.” she said, pulling the sonic out of her pocket and tossing it over. There was a light in her eyes, the thrill of an adventure racing through her veins. “Come on then - we don’t have much longer before the cameras reboot.” River said, holding out her hand to her wife.

“Right then - let’s get a shift on.”

“Get a shift on?” River asked, testing out the phrase on her tongue. 

“Yeah! It's my new thing.” the Doctor said, her face scrunching up a bit even as she smiled. “D’you like it?”

River shrugged. “I’ll get used to it.” she decided. “Where are we going?”

“Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, 2020 - anytime after March.” she said immediately, only pausing “Is that thing going to make it that far?”

“Possibly not - unless…” she could see the gears whirling in her wife’s head, her gaze fixed on the Vortex Manipulator strapped around her wrist.

“Unless what?” the Doctor asked, sounding nervous. She watched her wife start to tap commands into the Manipulator, calculating the proper space-time coordinates as she went. “I don’t think I like that look on your face…”

“Just shut up and hold on.” she muttered, holding out her arm to her wife. The Doctor sighed, but did as her wife asked her. With one last press of a button, they were off.

It took a moment for the Doctor to be able to see clearly again once they had landed - the perils of space-and-time travel without a capsule. “Where are we?” she asked, looking around them.

An array of vehicles surrounded them, all of them docked and powered down. Metal hulls were painted in a variety of colors - although all of the nicer-looking ones were all sitting in the same general area. It was some sort of port, that much was obvious. “Landing port for the prison - this is where they keep all of the ships when they aren’t in use.” River said, gesturing to the dome overtop of them. Looking up, the Doctor could see both the never-ending rain coming down over their heads, and the doors that would open to let ships in and out. “Shall we steal one?” River asked, with just a bit too much joy in her voice.

“Should have known that was your plan.” her wife grumbled, following her down the rows of ships. “That’s always your plan.”

“Is not.” her wife shot back, not sounding even the least bit offended. “Sometimes it’s your plan. Now hush, unless you want us to get caught.”

“Right - now what do we do?” the Doctor asked. She was content for the most part to let River lead on this adventure, a fact that hadn’t gone unnoticed. It was refreshing in a way that she wasn’t used to anymore, not having to be in charge and plan everything. She could trust that River could handle things - it was part of what made them work so well. She led them through the rows of docked ships, checking them over for the one that she wanted. As much as the Doctor enjoyed looking at the different ships - and the feel of her wife’s hand in her own - but she could hear the Stormcage guards behind them, and coming closer.

So she did the only thing she could - she pulled the sonic out of her pocket, using it to open the lock on the nearest shuttle.

River smiled at her wife, blowing her a kiss before she ducked inside, pulling the Doctor along behind her. “Let’s get to work.”

8888

_Sheffield, April 30, 2020_

It had been months now since they had seen the Doctor - none of them had heard from her since they destroyed Gallifrey. Their most common fear was that she just didn’t want to see them anymore - after all, they had just left her when she needed them the most. It took Graham’s reassurances for them to believe that she wouldn’t think that - this was the Doctor they were talking about, after all. But in their darkest moments, they worried that she was dead.

They had met up for tea at Graham’s house - it was their new ritual instead of movie nights on the TARDIS. And while it wasn’t quite as fun as forty-second century snacks and movies from different planets and time periods, it was still a good way to make sure that they stayed sane. That they remembered that everything that happened with the Doctor was real.

“What the hell was that?” Graham asked, looking towards the back garden. None of them moved, all of them intent on listening for any noises outside. Any information that they could gather now could only help them later on - the Doctor had taught them that.

Yaz and Ryan looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. It didn’t make the right noise - there was no sound of falling or re-entry - but the shaking that it caused when it impacted was unmistakable. “I think it was a spaceship.” Ryan said, more willing to risk hoping than Yaz was.

“What, in my back garden?” Graham asked, already looking annoyed that he knew the answer. He still followed them out the door, grumbling the whole while.

Yaz and Ryan stood just outside the door, looking on in amazement at the spaceship that had landed itself in Graham's garden. It was a small shuttle - barely big enough for three people, and the hull had been badly burned upon re-entry. They watched it cautiously for a minute - it didn’t look like any ship they had seen before, and so they had no idea what to expect.

The hatch opened up, and two people stumbled out amidst all the smoke. One of them was instantly recognizable - even if the coat didn’t give her away, everything else in her outfit would have. The other one wasn’t as easily recognized, but they were sure that the Doctor would introduce them to her new friend.

“Well, that was fun, wasn’t it?” the strange woman said, a breathless laugh escaping her once they had made it far enough away from the wreckage to avoid breathing in smoke. “Good thing it worked.” Both of them tumbled to the ground, arms wrapped around each other.

The Doctor turned to look at her, face scrunched up in indignation. “You didn’t know if it would work?” she squawked. She scrambled to her feet, hands on her hips for a moment before she broke the pose to help the other woman up. "What d'you mean, you didn't know if it would work?"

“Like you know if your plans are going to work!” the woman shot back. She had a lion's mane of blonde curls around her head, and wore a grey vest top and grey track pants. There was a hardness to her, an edge that Yaz had only seen in the most hardened criminals. But the smile on her face was wild and real, no mocking edge anywhere to be seen.

“Doctor?” Yaz called out, barely believing what she saw. The Doctor was back, standing in front of them like she hadn’t even been gone for five minutes, let alone four months.

“Fam!” the Doctor cried out, excitement lighting up her face when she saw them. Within a minute she had hugged each of them, before coming back around to do it again a second time. “Excellent, my plan worked.”

"You mean my plan." The mystery woman muttered.

The Doctor turned to look at the other woman, reaching up to tap her on the nose without even a second thought. "You, Doctor Song, were my plan." She announced, looking pleased with herself.

Instead of looking pleased, the mystery woman - Doctor Song, although they really didn’t know any more about her than that - rolled her eyes. “Rule One, Sweetie.” she said, pulling a too-large bit of tech out of a too-small pocket. She flipped it around in her hands and began tapping away, circling the ship that they had landed in. 

“Haven't heard that one in a long time.” the Doctor replied. It was odd - any other time, her attention would have been on her friends and everything that had happened since they had last seen each other, but she couldn’t seem to pull her eyes away from the newcomer. There was a faint blush on her cheeks as well, one that Yaz and Ryan assumed to be from exertion as opposed to anything else.

“Really?” the woman asked, a smirk on her face and a question in her eyes. “In that case, I can think of a few things you probably haven’t heard.” Just the tone of her voice was enough to make the humans blush.

At that point, Graham broke into their conversation - the humans had had enough time to process what was going on for the most part, except for one little thing. "Are you flirting?" He asked, sounding like he wasn't particularly sure he wanted to know the answer.

“What?” the Doctor asked, looking like a small child that had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “No. Of course not, that would be ridiculous!”

The stranger didn’t seem too happy with that idea. “Really?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. “Because I can name a lot of worse things than flirting that you’ve done.”

“Hush, River.” the Doctor hissed, a blush taking over most of her face.

River smirked - no matter which Doctor it was in front of her, she always enjoyed riling them up. “Make me.” she purred, and her wife turned to face her.

“Yeah, well maybe I will.” she shot back. 

“Sorry, would you mind pausin’ the flirtin’ for a mo’?” Graham asked, looking scandalized. “We thought you were dead.”

“Right.” she apologized, shrugging a bit as she smiled. “Sorry about that - had a run-in with the Judoon.”

“Those police rhinos?” Yaz asked, looking confused. Her eyes were stuck on the other woman - on the smile on her face as she took in everything around her. She looked happy, but familiar with everything around her - the opposite of everyone else from the future that they had met. “What do they have to do with anythin’?”

“Exactly.” she nodded, glad that her friends remembered what she was talking about. “Luckily, they locked me up in the same prison my wife is incarcerated in.” there was a little smile on her face, her eyes darting over to the other woman every few seconds. The other woman who was apparently her wife.

“I’m sorry, what?”

The Doctor scoffed, throwing up her hands. “That’s what I said!” she shook her head, blonde hair flying everywhere. “Rookie mistake on their part, if you ask me.”

The other woman laughed, throwing her head back, curls flying everywhere. All three humans turned to stare at her as she did - and so did the Doctor. “I think they meant the part about you being married to a criminal, sweetie.” she said, smirking at her wife.

“You’re not a criminal.” the Doctor replied, almost instinctively.

“Don’t be rude, dear.” River purred, her smirk enough to make even Graham blush. It was then that they noticed the gun strapped to her leg, the way her hand caressed it. “You love it just as much as I do.”

“Shut up.”

Before they could devolve into another round of flirting, Graham stepped in between them. “Well then, Doc,” he began, offering a smile to the stranger. “What d’you say we go and get a cuppa, and you can tell us all about how you know the Doc?”

River smiled, slipping her arm through his. “Oh, I like you.” she purred. “Where should we start? I feel like you’ve got some stories to share.”

And with that, they walked off - River and Graham in the lead, the others following behind.


End file.
